"Mona Lisa" Still Hot?

A
piece in the Journal this weekend wondered why seeing
the Mona Lisa in person is such a disappointing
experience. (The question has
been asked before.) Critic James Gardner suggests one:
“Unfortunately, like the dollar bill and the American flag, it has
assumed a pall of such impenetrable familiarity that we no longer
see it at all.”

I’m inclined to accept that, but I’m also curious: For how much
longer will it continue to be the case? Do kids still learn about
the Mona Lisa in school? Does it carry the same
significance to successive generations that it has for the last
100-odd years? Do their Adderall-addled brains, rewired by Google
and spoiled for choice, give this and similar iconic images the
same priority that once made it a top five box on the
standard-issue Western culture checklist? Do they still sing
“She’ll Be Coming ‘Round The Mountain?” and “This Land Is Your
Land?” and whatever else I grew up learning? And, if not, are those
necessarily bad things?

I don’t know! That’s a lot of questions for which I have no
answer and which people have obviously been asking for a while now.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts. Do you think we’re close to
living in a world where the most well-known portrait of a lady is
something like this?